Saturday, June 07, 2014

1870 ads and "picture story" at Lee's Comic Rack

Personally, I wouldn't set off fireworks in my backyard, let alone in the parlor. Speaking of parlors, we had one in my childhood Toledo home. It was the scene for piano lessons, jazz get-togethers, guitar and bass storage, our ancient Garrard turntable and hi fi speaker, and I forget what else. No fireworks that I can recall, however.

1 comment:

Lee, this is darned interesting. The illustrations certainly foreshadow the development of the comic strip / story!

Something else they remind me of: Are you familiar at all with the pre-cartoons of Wilhelm Busch? In 1865, he published "Max und Moritz" (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17161/17161-h/17161-h.htm); Wikipedia points out their own foreshadowing of the Katzenjammer Kids - and to me, they seem like a mid-19th-century German "Bill and Ted", "Beavis and Butthead", "Wayne and Garth", etc.

...with apologies for what today comes across as cruel and sadistic, and hardly funny: "humor" of a different time and place.

I'll stick with The Little Corporal; Max and Moritz would've had him for breakfast, and 1845's Struwwelpeter (https://archive.org/stream/englishstruwwelp00hoffrich#page/n3/mode/2up) is even more frightening.

Winnie is endearing, and worth the gentle smile... Lee, thanks for the look at something almost forgotten today.

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I was born in Toledo, served in the Navy eight years, graduated from Bowling Green State University with a B.A. in Popular Culture, and worked for fifteen years as a Medicare claims examiner. We reside in the country with eleven cats, two of whom--Griff and Wesley--are my very own tuxedos (black-and-whites).